Pages

10/03/2013

Sandra in Space

Gravity

(USA/UK, 93 min.)

Dir. Alfonso Cuarón, Writ. Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón

Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Every little kid dreamed of going to space. We’ve all been
Jodie Foster in Contact at some point
or another. Jodie got to go there (depending on how one interprets the static),
but the final frontier of space is just something one gets to stare at with
wonder when positioned at an adequate distance from the light pollution of the
city.

Any dreams of going to space, though, can finally be
realized with the awesome and groundbreaking visuals of Gravity. Director Alfonso Cuarón takes the audience as close to
space as they’ll ever get with this tour
de force 3-D VFX extravaganza. Gravity
is the world of cinema like one has never seen it before.

Life doesn’t exist in space, as the opening title cards of Gravity ominously note before Cuarón
invites the audience to blast off with one of the most spectacular opening
sequences ever shot with a camera. Gravity
begins with one of the director’s signature long takes. Lasting for well over
fifteen minutes—audiences will be too enrapt to check their watches—the opening
shot of Gravity dances around a
spaceship as two astronauts, Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) and Ryan Stone
(Sandra Bullock), perform some repair work on a space station hundreds of
kilometers above Earth. As the camera, manoeuvered with balletic grace by DP
Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men, The Tree of Life), whirls around the
astronauts, Gravity presents a
panoramic 360° view of both the beauty and horror of outer space.

The view of Earth is lovely, as Matt notes in his droll,
calming camaraderie, but it must put one on edge to be so exposed and
vulnerable. George Clooney is endlessly charming, even in space, in this role
that caters perfectly to his sweet-talking charisma. Matt’s smooth, soothing calmness
is necessary, since the minutiae of space ensure that his team feels as safe as
they possibly can. Ryan, a rookie to Matt’s veteran, is clearly scared stiff by
the abyss that engulfs her.

Matt and Ryan are then assaulted by a storm of debris. Gravity in turn spirals the audience
into a dizzying frenzy as the camera seamlessly assumes the perspective of
space from inside Ryan’s helmet as the dream of space goes sour in a
jaw-droppingly orchestrated assault that outmatches any attack launched in
space by Darth Vader. The opening scene of Gravity
makes the car chase centrepiece of Cuarón’s Children
of Men look like child’s play.

The ensuing tightrope act of survival is an equally
breathless odyssey. It’s odd to call Gravity
breathless since Bullock’s measured breathing and frantic panting perform
double duty as the film’s dialogue. Each breath brings her closer to death as
her oxygen supply dwindles. Uttering few words, Gravity conveys Ryan’s emotional journey as she floats through a
kind of purgatory to come up for air.

Bullock gives a compelling physical performance in Gravity. The performance is arguably
among the best work of Bullock's career, but it’s a tricky turn to assess. The
script essentially uses Ryan as a marionette that Cuarón dangles around a set and
green screen for much of the film’s 93 minutes. Much of Bullock’s most emotive
work also comes partially reflected or obscured through glass while much else
in the film shows only a floating body matched with the mortal sound of Ryan’s
gasping breaths. It’s an impressive feat of acrobatics, though, to complement
the visual dazzle of the post-production spectacle, but the role doesn’t offer
the same range of depth as it does Cirque du Soleil-ish physical feats.

Oddly enough, Gravity
only feels strained when it grabs a hold on Ryan and moves the story into a
more intimate space. Perhaps it’s inevitable that a film with such an awesome
opening movement plays like a decrescendo, although the music by Steven Price and
Cuarón’s intermediate cliffhangers ensure that Gravity never deflates. As Gravity
moves towards its resolution, though, Cuarón’s symbolism becomes rather heavy-handed
as the horror of Gravity becomes a
metaphor for a woman who was lost in a drift following the death of her child.
Ryan immediately assumes the fetal position when safety feels nigh and the
final act of the film unfurls as a kind of rebirth until she can take her first
step in a new life. The subtext of Gravity
is obvious, but it’s something so precise and clear that any viewer can grasp
and appreciate.

Gravity, however much it leaves one wishing that Ryan’s
interstellar gestation would strive for higher meaning, is a true marvel as a
feat of epic escapism. No film set in outer space has ever used the visual
elements of cinema to realize fully humankind’s minuscule insignificance in the
grand scheme of the universe. Gravity
is mostly soundless aside from Ryan’s fearful breaths, Matt’s boyish monologues,
and Price’s bombastic score, and the result is a suspenseful one-upping of Alien’s ad line, “In space no one can
hear you scream....” Cuarón finds a realistic accomplishment by making the
aural and visual boundaries of space—or lack thereof—the film’s true
antagonist.

Gravity, through
its sweeping and grandiose manoeuvrings of camerawork and digital pizzazz,
creates an all-encompassing universe that viewers have never seen before. The
literal elements of pure space, the voids without the manmade junk, each inject
a terrifying sense of the unknown into the film. Cuarón has managed to turn
each cube of space into something both beautiful and threatening.